What happens when religion loses its influence?

The world has been watching China’s social credit system with grim fascination, a real-life compulsory Orwellian horror in which citizens’ lives are determined by their social score. Daily activities are monitored and tracked, then distilled into a single number according to rules set by the government. Intended to be fully implanted by 2020, its goal is to “standardize the assessment of citizens’ and businesses’ economic and social reputation.”

Standardize. That word alone should send shivers down your spine. Let the meaning sink in: standardize. That means conformity is enshrined and individuality and innovation are attacked.

When criticized about its draconian social order, “Chinese Communist Party publications scoff that Westerners are simply too unsophisticated to understand the wonders of the new system,” according to the New York Post. Translation: If you criticize the government, ipso facto you’re dangerous. Communist Russia used this argument to incarcerate dissidents in psych wards, where they were experimented upon. China is already “reconditioning” high-profile individuals to behave only in accordance with communist principles, such as popular Chinese movie star Fan Bingbing.

This is all very interesting in a distant and other-side-of-the-world sort of way, right? Or … are we facing something similar here in America?

Think about it. The U.S. is in the grip of a progressive mobocracy trying to standardize everyone’s thoughts and actions. Leftists insist you support their side or they will find some way to hurt you – economically, politically, socially, educationally, or in your career.

Little by little, incrementally, the progressive dominance of politics, schools and the media means conservative thought is being suppressed (at best) or punished (at worst). Don’t believe me? Just consider the number of people afraid to admit their support for Trump lest they have their grades penalized or their job jeopardized or their cars keyed. If you’re caught wearing a MAGA hat in public, you’re practically taking your life in your hands.

Conservatives are heckled in the streets, harassed in restaurants and have their homes or businesses sabotaged. In school, children are bullied or expelled for expressing Christian opinions or objecting to “transgender” athletes dominating girls’ sports.

In an unregulated (and some might argue, unhinged) invasion into our privacy, the Google/Facebook/YouTube/Amazon/Microsoft/Apple cabal is listening and tracking everything: what we say, what we research, where we travel, what routes we take, what we buy and everything else about us. China does the same thing.

Conservatives are being damaged economically. Thanks to the SPLC’s influence, PayPal is banning some groups from receiving online donations using their platform. Mastercard is calling for a vote at its upcoming June shareholder meeting to financially blacklist conservatives. The same activist group pushing Mastercard, SumOfUs, “is fighting against people and groups it deems hateful such by trying to get them financially blacklisted on social media and payment platforms such as Facebook, Google, Twitter, Patreon and PayPal. Their goal is to ‘choke off donations.'”

Some social media sites are even changing their own rules to justify banning free speech by conservatives. Not to be left out of the game, the federal government is trying to create legislation like the “Equality” Act, which promises to make Christianity (upon which this nation was founded, remember?) all but illegal in practice.

See? Incrementally, step by step, progressives are attempting to turn America into a dystopian state every bit as oppressive as China. One conservative noted, “Democrats want this country to be a place where the witch hunters call you guilty and force you to prove your innocence before the screaming mob.” The goal is a single unified progressive groupthink society.

But of course the one single thing keeping America from turning into China is the Second Amendment. Eliminating personal firearms ownership is possibly the biggest goal of the left. But progressives have discovered one important tactic on the road to banning guns: Don’t make it illegal, just make it impossible.

In other words, unchecked, the progressive promises of utopia here in the U.S. bear an eerie similarity to what China is implementing now, in which people are being “standardized” in accordance to the progressive economic and social requirements.

The Chinese government claims this system is “restoring morality” to its nation. So let’s talk morality.

Jesse Lee Peterson wisely observed, “Democrats are about control, but they cannot control a moral people. Democrats have to make people angry and immoral in order to assume power over them.”

In a poignant video (below) by Harvard professor Clay Christensen, he relates a conversation with a Marxist economist from China finishing up a Fulbright Fellowship. The Chinese economist was stunned to learn “how critical religion is to the functioning of democracy.”

“The reason why democracy works,” said the Chinese economist, “is not because the government was designed to oversee what everybody does. But rather democracy works because most people, most of the time, voluntarily choose to obey the law. … Americans followed these rules because they had come to believe that they weren’t just accountable to society, they were accountable to God. … If you take away religion, you cannot hire enough police.”

China came up with its answer to “not enough police” by implementing this social credit system. Take away Americans’ guns and faith, and this will be the next step here as well.